


pathmaker

by whimsicalimages



Series: Ahsoka Tano's Rules for Rebels, Rogues, and Renegades [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghost Shenanigans, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, Not Canon Compliant, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24265444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalimages/pseuds/whimsicalimages
Summary: Ahsoka Tano, age 70 standard, feels like she is always late.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Poe Dameron, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Ahsoka Tano's Rules for Rebels, Rogues, and Renegades [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751593
Comments: 15
Kudos: 237





	pathmaker

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for months (pretty much since I walked out of TROS just absolutely _wildly_ enraged) and am posting it now in order to keep myself accountable to the rest of my plans for this 'verse. Come yell with me or ask about my elaborate headcanons on [tumblr.](https://keensers.tumblr.com)

Ahsoka Tano, age 70 standard, feels like she is always late.

“You’re not _always_ late, Snips, just a lot of the time,” Anakin Skywalker, glowing blue, tells her when she voices this in a desert on Jakku. “My bad influence. Sorry.”

“You aren’t,” Ahsoka says dryly, looking at the wreckage of what was once a TIE fighter. She sighs, dismayed. Nothing is ever easy.

“I’m not,” Anakin agrees. “Not for that, anyway.”

He is young today, as he almost always is when he shows up to haunt her – she’s only seen him with the mask twice since he died, and she doesn’t much care to remember either time.

She closes her eyes, reaching into the Force for guidance. “If I were a Force-sensitive rogue stormtrooper, where would I go after getting off this dustball?”

Instead of something useful like a heading, she gets a confused pulse of _maybe-danger_ from the Force before she hears the distinctive sound of a blaster charging. “Who’s asking?” a hoarse voice says. A new voice.

She turns slowly towards the source, hands loose. A man who looks like he’s been through eighteen levels of hell is watching her from the wreckage, eyes wary. His hands are steady, but she can smell the blood and burnt metal on him even at twenty paces.

“That’s Commander Poe Dameron,” Anakin says, only slightly surprised. “Leia’s protégé. Ren caught him a few days ago, but I guess your stormtrooper got him out. Leia will be happy he’s alive, he’s a _great_ pilot.”

Ahsoka mulls this over for a moment. It’s always useful to have someone like Leia Organa owe you a favor. “Sounds like the Force is playing favorites,” she murmurs.

Anakin snorts. “Isn’t it always?”

“Hey, who are you? Who are you talking to?”

Ahsoka squashes the urge to roll her eyes. She could use Fulcrum’s codewords, but she doesn’t think there will be a need, and she doesn’t know if Leia’s even still teaching the same ones to her lieutenants. Ahsoka’s been out of contact for a long time. “Peace, Commander. I’m a friend.” She pauses, looking him over. “It looks like you’ll need one.”

The blaster doesn’t move. “What do you want with Finn?”

She tilts her head. “The stormtrooper?”

“Not anymore.”

“Hard career to walk away from,” Ahsoka says lightly.

Poe Dameron scowls. “Well, Finn did, and anyway, it wasn’t a _career_. They were calling him FN-2187, you know that? Like he wasn’t even a person. He saved me, I owe him my life. I’ll ask again: who are you and what do you want with him?”

“I want to train him,” Ahsoka says.

He squints at her suspiciously. “For what?”

“He’s definitely one of Leia’s,” Anakin says. “You know, sometimes I wish she’d gotten a little less of my paranoia and Luke had gotten a little more.”

She ignores him with the ease of years of practice. “I want to train him to use the Force,” she says, and ignites one of her lightsabers for emphasis. Maybe a little bit for the sake of showmanship – she learned from the best, after all.

The white blade shines even against the light sky.

Dameron drops the blaster, eyes widening. “You’re a Jedi?”

She spins the lightsaber and then thumbs it off, clipping it to her belt. “I was once. A long time ago.”

A familiar presence joins Anakin’s behind her. “Dramatic, aren’t we?” Obi-Wan says.

“You have no room to be making pointed comments,” Ahsoka replies.

“I gotta say, even if you’re a Jedi, it’s freaky when you talk to thin air like that,” says Dameron.

She waves a hand. “I’m merely an old woman talking to her ghosts.”

Obi-Wan huffs. He’s young today, too, and his put-upon look reminds her so much of the longsuffering Jedi Master she remembers from the Clone Wars that she has to look away for a moment.

“Ghosts,” Dameron says faintly. “Right.”

Then he passes out.

Ahsoka stifles a groan, but walks over to prod him gently with the Force. He’s probably not waking up for a few hours, even if she can get him to her ship. “Ugh,” she says. “Deadweight.”

“Cheer up, Snips. At least he’ll take you to the stormtrooper when he wakes up.”

“ _If_ he wakes up. I don’t have that much bacta on my ship and I’m still no good at healing.”

Anakin winces at this blunt assessment, and looks at Obi-Wan beseechingly for support. Ahsoka raises her brow markings at her Grandmaster’s ghost.

He goes through a series of subtle expressions that anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice. “Your Force healing has progressed a great deal just in the past few years,” Obi-Wan finally says, diplomatic.

“And the Force is playing favorites, so you’ll have help,” adds Anakin, grinning.

They all look at the collapsed form of Commander Poe Dameron.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, dubious.

“Right,” Anakin repeats firmly.

Ahsoka shakes her head, but goes to kneel next to Dameron. She lays a hand on his shoulder, tentatively reaching out again with the Force, just a little deeper, and has to fight not to recoil at the lingering traces of Dark clinging to the man’s head – he’s lucky he’s Force-null, or Ren would have done more lasting damage. Still, she picks apart the strands of Darkness, prying them gently away and releasing them. Dameron must have been flying with a killer headache.

That done, she opens her eyes. She’s already tired just from that, the way she always is when she tries to heal. “I can’t do much more. I’ll meditate when we’re back on the ship and then check again, but he should just need bacta now.”

“He’ll be fine. Leia makes sure they’re too stubborn to stay down for long.”

“How lovely that she’s passing on that quality,” Obi-Wan mutters.

Anakin sputters. Ahsoka sighs again. Her most tenacious and irritating ghosts and a half-dead pilot, just what she needs.

You’re Fulcrum, she tells herself. And more than that, you’re Ahsoka Tano. The Force has finally given you a task you must complete, after years of fruitlessly chasing subtle hints and whispers, years of being too late.

You’re Ahsoka Tano. You’re gonna get off this rock. You’re gonna get Poe Dameron back to the Resistance where he belongs.

You’re gonna find this Finn kid and train him until the Force stops shouting at you that you’re failing a duty you didn’t know you had.

Thus resolved, she nods to herself and hoists Poe Dameron over her shoulders. It’s a long walk back to her ship.

In the desert wind, over the strains of her ghosts bickering, she thinks she can almost hear the fiercely satisfied hum of the Force, urging her ever onward. 


End file.
